Lebanon, October 2014: Bellevue Medical Center aims to promote the responsible use of antibiotics through their Antibiotic Awareness Campaign. Antibiotics, which have previously allowed treating deadly bacterial infections and saving many lives, are now becoming less and less effective. Raising awareness on the correct use of antibiotics is crucial. This November, BMC is launching an Antibiotic Resistance Awareness Campaign to raise public understanding of appropriate antibiotic use.
Antibiotics are important medicines for treating bacterial infections, but are not effective against viruses. However, antibiotics are losing their effectiveness at an alarming rate. This is mainly driven by overusing antibiotics and prescribing them inappropriately. Bacteria that were once treated easily with the simplest antibiotics have mutated and are no longer responsive to any treatments. When antibiotics fail to work, the consequences are long-lasting illnesses, the need for more expensive and toxic medications, and sometimes death. Adding to this, the pipeline to developing new antibiotics has been overdrawn since the 1980s, leaving fewer and fewer choices to treat important bacterial infections.The issue is so serious to the WHO, that their 2014 report discusses the possibility of soon facing a “post-antibiotic era”, in which common infections and minor injuries can kill.
Interestingly, in the United States, $1.1 billion is spent annually on unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions. The “Centers for disease Control and Prevention”, has demonstrated that public pressure onto their doctors influences doctors’ prescription: doctors prescribe antibiotics 62% of the time when they feel parental pressure against 7% if they don’t feel compelled to prescribe them. Also, contrary to popular belief, green phlegm is not always a sign of an infection needing antibiotics.
In Lebanon misuse and abuse of antibiotics is common and widespread, which allows bacteria to adapt and develop resistance to antibiotics. There are no national figures on antibiotics resistance, however the Lebanese Society for Infectious Diseases is collaborating with various experts on a project to collect data from hospitals around the country.
For Bellevue Medical Center, antibiotics resistance is a serious health threat to the Lebanese community and must become acknowledged by the general public. Commenting on this issue, Dr.Matta, head of infectious diseases at Bellevue Medical Center, said: “We are all to blame for this: doctors, pharmacists, and patients. Self-medicating on antibiotics specifically is extremely common in Lebanon, and contributes greatly to the problem.” He also added that, “this issue is given little attention, and the consumer’s limited understanding of the principles of antibiotic resistance is mostly the cause of self-medication as people take this subject lightly.”
Launching awareness campaigns in other countries was proven as an effective way to decrease misuse/abuse of antibiotics. For this reason and for the urgency of this issue, Bellevue Medical Center has decided to steer this campaign and raise awareness on antibiotic resistance. The campaign will target the general public via media appearances of healthcare experts, lectures, games, flyers, and others. Via this campaign, Bellevue Medical Center hopes to increase public knowledge regarding the use of antibiotics, improve patient use of antibiotics, and mobilize healthcare groups to assist the community in reducing the over use and misuse of antibiotics.